The Month Of Arizona: May 2024 Recap

by A Purple Life, posted in Blogging, Early Retirement Updates, Film, Finance, Fitness, Food, Hobbies, Investing, Keto, Net Worth Update, Travel

I’m going to need time to slow down a little because this is getting ridiculous 🙂 . I’m still not used to writing “2024” and we’re almost halfway through, so either my brain needs to catch up or time needs to slow down – obviously I’m picking the easier solution 😉 .

This month was luckily way less frantic than April. Hopefully I will remember not to over-schedule myself and my travels so I don’t make that mistake again.

However, it still makes me laugh that traveling once per week wore me down so much when I used to travel just for a weekend. No wonder I was tired all the time 🙂 . Anyway, let’s see what I got up to during my less wild May and try to get my brain to realize it’s now June 2024.

Continue reading “The Month Of Arizona: May 2024 Recap” →

Review: Qantas International Business Class

by A Purple Life, posted in Reviews, Travel, Travel Hacking, Travel Reviews

This is a bit of a saga 🙂 . During my Mom and my trip Down Under, we decided to give a new-to-us airline a chance: LATAM. But as you can see from the title, this isn’t a review of that airline. So what happened? 🙂

We booked a flight from Sydney, Australia to Auckland, New Zealand, 10 months in advance. And a few hours before our flight, we received a text message from LATAM that said our flight had been canceled and asked if we wanted a refund. No flight alternatives were given. WHAT. THE. FUCK?!?!?!?! Continue reading “Review: Qantas International Business Class” →

How I Use Notion To Organize My Life

by A Purple Life, posted in Blogging, Hobbies, Reviews

About a year ago I mentioned in my annual accomplishment post that I had started using Notion to organize my life. I didn’t know that I was looking for an organizational solution to my ‘busy’ retired schedule 😉 , but a YouTuber I watch mentioned they use Notion and I loved the look of it so I decided to try it out.

Doing so was easy because it’s a free service and was simple to set up. I was then immediately blown away by learning that it’s completely customizable. Anything I want to create – I can. Continue reading “How I Use Notion To Organize My Life” →

Review: COPA Airlines – A Panamanian Gem

by A Purple Life, posted in Reviews, Travel, Travel Reviews

So I’m a creature of habit. I follow the “better the devil you know” guideline when it comes to things like airlines and rarely branch out unless I’ve received a recommendation from someone I trust. And even then, I do lots of research on the airline before committing to barreling through the sky with them.

When I was looking into an airline to take from Costa Rica back to the states in time to catch my first Total Solar Eclipse, COPA Airlines kept coming up. I knew that a few of my friends had flown them before, but wasn’t sure if it was for me. They’re a Panamanian airline and my flight would backtrack a bit to Panama before continuing on straight to Austin, Texas. Continue reading “Review: COPA Airlines – A Panamanian Gem” →

The Month Of The Solar Eclipse: April 2024 Recap

by A Purple Life, posted in Blogging, Early Retirement, Early Retirement Updates, Film, Finance, Fitness, Food, Hobbies, Investing, Keto, Net Worth Update, Relationships, Travel, Travel Hacking

This might have been the fastest month of my retired life. I had a great time, but fast travel is definitely not for me because while I had a lovely time, I can’t remember the last time I was this tired. It was probably during my career 4 years ago and I don’t like it! So let’s see what I did this month that was worth messing up my sleep schedule and my relaxed lifestyle 🙂 .
Continue reading “The Month Of The Solar Eclipse: April 2024 Recap” →

Review: Air New Zealand

by A Purple Life, posted in Reviews, Travel, Travel Hacking, Travel Reviews

I’m always curious about airlines I’ve never flown before. And in my typical neurotic fashion, I always search around to find reviews of new airlines before I fly them. So in the interest of helping anyone else that’s like me out there, this is my experience flying Air New Zealand for the first time. Continue reading “Review: Air New Zealand” →

Review: Glowworm Waitomo & Ruakuri Cave Tour From Auckland, New Zealand

by A Purple Life, posted in Reviews, Travel, Travel Reviews

So I had heard that a must see when visiting New Zealand were the glowworms at Waitomo. It’s about a two and a half hour drive from Auckland and way back in 2018 when my Mom and I were originally planning this trip Down Under, we were going to rent a car and drive around New Zealand ourselves…on the left side of the road.

Well that was 6 years ago and since then, I’ve become a little less adventurous in the driving side of things and also bougier in general. So when we were re-planning this trip for 2023, we started talking about alternate ways we could see these worms! Continue reading “Review: Glowworm Waitomo & Ruakuri Cave Tour From Auckland, New Zealand” →

My Partner Reached FI!!! A Q&A

by A Purple Life, posted in Early Retirement, Finance, Guest Posts, Relationships

When I announced that my partner hit his FI number on Instagram, someone commented (and I quote in its entirety): “Blog Post.” So here is “Blog Post.” I unsurprisingly vetoed using that as the actual blog post title, but here is my lovely Partner to tell you about his journey to FI, based on questions y’all submitted in my Instagram stories. Take it away my dude! Continue reading “My Partner Reached FI!!! A Q&A” →